A/N: Sorry this has taken so long, I am temporarily out of an internet connection until I can pay rent (poor college student here) and it took awhile to get to the library. It has been written for awhile though.

Just so you know, I have the end of this story planned, nine chapters after this one. It's been so fun growing as a writer with you guys and developing this story. I really love you all for sticking around and look forward to what's next!

PS.. Check out the cover that was made for this story! (slash) .

The impact alone flung her neck back as though it was made of rubber, forced her body against her seatbelt and then crashing backward into the seat. It took a few moments to come to after that, before the car starting flooding so quickly that she couldn't even speak before they were immersed. Panic gripped her so tightly that she couldn't think to open the door or undo her seatbelt that was already locked. They were trapped, they had gone off the bridge, how were they going to be saved?

Her mother's eyes were closed. Elena told herself she was just unconscious. The older woman's face looked so graceful that she might have been sleeping, relaxed by the blue light of the night lake under a full moon. Even the locks of her hair were wrapped around her just so, like she was part of some painting that belonged in a fancy gallery. Elena tried to kick her seat, tried to wake her up, but it did not work. Her mother was just sleeping, just resting and waiting for this to be over… just sleeping...

Her father was pounding against the glass door violently, over and over again in an attempt to break it. Not wanting to think about how there was no way the pressure of the lake could be fought against with just a human elbow she tried to get her Dad's attention, yelling and swallowing some of the water by consequence. It was like taking a drink too fast and then being unable to push the drink all the way down. Painful. Praying to God- did she believe in such things?- she hoped that he could break it against all odds. Again, they were helpless.

After maybe the third time of her motioning, he looked back, his face one of pure desperation. Her father was looking to her for reassurance, to apologize for not being able to save her like he had always promised he would. She reached for his hand to tell him that it was okay, that it wasn't his fault. He gave hers a small squeeze and trying as hard as she could to ignore the severe and suffocating toll on her lungs, she mouthed, "I love you".

He nodded, and a morbid part of her wondered if he was crying tears that she would never see. He said the words back, she was sure she heard them as the excruciating lack of oxygen took hold of her body and forced her consciousness to blacken. Part of her was afraid, now that she realized she was going to die here, but she thought of her father's hands and forced herself to believe that there was a heaven that she was going to. They'd be there together, so happy that no one could mourn them. She wished that she could say goodbye to everyone, Jenna, Jeremy, Stefan, Damon… but then she could no longer think and she no longer was.

There was something about the first seconds of waking up from sleep- especially one that was medicinally induced- that made it hard to register where one was at or when. Made it hard to tell the difference from a too comfortable bed to your own firm one at home, hard to tell the difference between the smells of cotton sheets in contrast to pancakes cooked by your father. It was the second right after this confusion when she realized that she was at Damon and Stefan's house and why that hurt the most and took her calm breathing and reduced it to restricted breaths; those that turned too easily into quiet sobs for the third time this week. Maybe one day she'd be able to get out of bed without wetting her pillow in tears but it seemed like a far too distant date. If anything was true, she still hated the feel of water.

It wasn't until almost immediately after she was done crying that there was a knock on the door, convincing her that the intruder had to have been listening, but she slowly got out of the huge bed and went to the door. Damon was standing there with a solemn smile, already dressed up for the event of the day and holding a bagged black dress on a hanger. He walked in after she moved from the doorway and she shut the door behind him once he had placed the dress on her bed. "Jenna told me your size. Dad, Stefan, and I bought clothes last night, figured we could pick up an outfit for you and Jeremy."

"Thank you," she said sincerely, tears still welling up in her eyes. "We're going home today for the wake anyway, but thank you."

"Are you sure?" he asked, his brow creasing and his eyes taking on such a worried and sad look that she wanted more than anything to stop crying so he wouldn't have to be concerned about her. "You guys are welcome to stay as long as you need."

She shook her head, even though part of her wanted to stay here forever. There were no memories of her parents here that she had to face and with how long she had known Stefan it was almost like a second home. But Jenna was right. They had to face it sometime and today after the funeral and the wake that was to be held at their home was as good a time as any. Elena looked over at the dress on the bed and then into the mirror, suddenly tempted to push Damon out of the room at once when she saw her reflection. She looked nightmarish, like some sort of walking ghost that had lost it's way. "I have to get dressed."

"Okay," he said, looking troubled by the tone in her voice and maybe the neutral responses he kept getting. Was he expecting her to break down? It probably would have made sense, considering her parent's funeral was in only a few hours. But she had spent the past four days crying so much that she wasn't entirely sure she was capable of it anymore, not when she was somehow capable of keeping it together for the moment. "I'll see you downstairs."

Not really aware of nodding until he had already left, she walked over to the dress he had picked out for her. It was simply structured and modest, a style that would fit her well even though she had to admit that she would probably never want to wear it again, let alone look at it. She put it on, not about to take a shower. She had tried to take one last night for the first time since the accident but the feel of the water collecting around her skin had made her break down, crying loud enough that Jenna had rushed in and held her while she sat naked on the tiled floor. They had worked out a very slow but less emotional taxing rag and soap method, Jenna washing her hair in a way that barely let her feel the water before quickly drying it.

Her hair was easy enough to brush into a simple ponytail at the moment- anything else she thought would have been too much effort that she couldn't muster. There were a pair of earrings on the dresser that Jenna had dropped off to her room last night that she put on, but Elena didn't even bother with the make up bag available beside them.

There was another knock on her door and this time her brother Jeremy was the one to come in. He looked so much older than Elena had ever seen him, dressed up in his suit with an unusual dark expression on his face, and her heart sank a little bit. This wasn't supposed to happen to her little brother. He was only fourteen. It was only how concerned she was about him that made her able to look him in the eye.

"Hey," he greeted, "you ready?"

No. Never. But her lips gave a simple and sure, "Yeah. How about you?"

"Let's just say I'd rather be on the receiving end of this whole thing," he said so harshly that she almost gasped. She could feel her facade crumble, thinking how terrible he must be feeling to want to be dead. He looked away and walked out of the room before she could pull him close and cry with him, simply saying, "I'll let Jenna know you're ready."

As soon as he was out of her hearing range the sobs she had been concealing were no longer able to be suppressed. She stood, wondering if he blamed her for what happened. It would make sense after all, and it's not like she didn't blame herself either. Especially since she had been the only one to survive. Why couldn't it have been her father that had been rescued first or her mother? Over and over she had gone through the what-if's the past few days and they were so much more intoxicating than reality, even the ones that weren't so happy.

But Jeremy… he hadn't been the reason their parents were on that bridge and even better he had been spared every excruciating detail of watching them drown. Of being completely helpless in the most esquisitely painful ways. Her brother might be the one who wished he was dead, but Elena- she was supposed to have died. It was only the knowledge that living with this guilt was a punishment far worse than death that stopped her from doing something stupid, from drowning herself in pills and alcohol just as she had seen Damon do. Suddenly everything about him made so much more sense…

When she was finally able to quiet down and gain a loose control over her emotions, she wiped her face dry and only now patted her face with foundation from the make up bag in an attempt to hide her blotchy face. Once that was done she looked around the room once more before finally leaving the room- what had been her only safe haven- and began to walk downstairs.

The funeral had been nice. That seemed like such a bland description, but Elena couldn't think of a better word that would encompass how she had felt about it. The whole town had been there after all, people she barely even knew sharing her grief that was so intimate and personal until she was so completely numb that she thought she might never feel again. So many attendees who meant well still bringing up how lucky it was that she had survived and how blessed. People who didn't understand that instead of changing her outlook on her grief, they only shoved it that much further down.

But the flowers had been pretty, the chapel and service so sweet and serene, every person giving such lovely words about her parents as a parting gift. So who was she to say that she wished she hadn't gone? That she wished that every damn person currently in her house for this stupid wake would just get the hell out so she could cry in peace? Because as she walked around the house with a cup of punch in her hand that she had demanded Damon spike earlier, in between guests trying to get her attention and memories captured in every little nook and cranny, she thought she was going to explode.

Bonnie and Matt had already left at her request; the last thing she wanted was more people to worry about. Stefan was around here somewhere keeping an eye on Jeremy for her. Luckily, Damon found her and put one of his hands on her waist, turning her around with a glance up the stairs. "Come on, you should get some rest. I'll make sure Jenna's okay with it and then Stefan and I will clear everyone out."

"Come with me real quick?" she begged, knowing that out of anyone here Damon was the most likely to ward off any people that would try and talk to her, unafraid to be rude if he had to.

He nodded, his hand that had been touching her gently becoming a protective arm around her, and they walked together around the living room and up the staircase. It was then that Elena could hear Jenna shouting, not having realized that she hadn't seen her aunt for a bit of time now, and then John's voice in return. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying, and decided to go closer. Damon seemed a little more hesitant, letting go of her and going to grab her wrist and maybe pull her back, but then he followed as soon as she motioned with her head for him to follow.

The door to the guest room was cracked slightly open, revealing a very angry looking Uncle John and the back of Aunt Jenna's head. John didn't seem to catch sight of her or Damon, but it was Jenna who was currently yelling at the moment, "I don't know how on earth you let that sick sense of entitlement from this town warp your brain, John, but you are not taking custody over them. Do you understand?"

"Damn right I am," John snapped, "you are a grad student trying to make ends meet at a part time job. If it's a question of who can better provide for them-,"

"Then it sure as hell isn't you!" Jenna countered back, "which my sister knew when she made me legal guardian!"

Elena thought about turning around, knowing that she shouldn't be getting in the middle of this whether or not it was about her future and completely overwhelmed by everything anyway, but it was then that it looked like John seemed to catch sight of her. It was hard to say whether he was looking at her or Jenna with the way he was angled, but his response made it a rather moot point. "Elena is my biological daughter. I think that ranks a little higher than niece. As for Jeremy-,"

"Whoah, what?" Jenna retorted, sounding just as blown out of the water as Elena was, but then-, "they adopted her from you? Seriously?"

But that meant- she was adopted? Jenna had known?

"Yes. Why don't we have Elena come in and I can tell you both the whole story," John said, making her realize that he had indeed known she was standing there and chosen to reveal his big secret like that anyway. Jenna whipped around with her mouth hanging open, her eyebrows folding together when she saw her niece as if she was actually sorry, but Elena backed up against Damon.

"No thank you," she urged, turning around and starting to head down the hall and back down the stairs. Damon was following close behind her, something she was completely grateful for, especially when both relatives started to follow after them. It wasn't until the front door that all parties caught up to each other, John going to take Elena's wrist as he said, "Elena, please-", and Damon turned around and punched him square in the jaw.

"You've hurt her enough for one day," he hissed, then pulling the door open and helping Elena through it before she could hear Jenna's pleas and the rest of the crowd react to the scene they had caused.

She wondered what Stefan would do as they swiftly walked away from her house. The idea of driving anywhere still caused too much anxiety and so she took off the stupid heels she had worn and began to run. Ran down the sidewalk street of the neighborhood she had grown up in, wishing that she could move away to somewhere foreign and empty of memories. Somewhere that didn't have trees everywhere and that wasn't so small and knit together, somewhere that didn't have bridges and secret family adoptions and funerals that the whole town attended. Somewhere far across the world where they spoke a different language and had completely different customs that she could write fantastic stories about. Some place where they could commune with the dead so she could tell her parents how sorry she was and how mad all at the same time. Somewhere that was not Mystic Falls.

It wasn't until she reached Laurel Avenue, in the middle of town, that she finally slowed down. Her lungs started beating heavy in her chest as if they were her heart and her heart was going speeds that she hadn't quite felt before. She doubled over, resting her elbows on her thighs and wishing that she could get out of this dress and not expose her underwear to everyone. A few moments later Damon caught up, looking a little winded but not annoyed. She thought she might have saw him limping, but a few seconds later he was walking normally as he said, "Why don't you follow me for a little bit?"

If it was anyone else she would have made up an excuse and simply gone her own way for another few hours before finally heading back to her house. For Damon, though, she sighed and nodded in defeat. He nudged his head east and they started walking this time. Elena was glad that he didn't say anything at first, but twenty minutes later she finally found herself speaking. "I can't believe you punched my uncle- John."

"He was a dick," Damon replied unapologetically. "He shouldn't have told you like that."

"Are you surprised?" she asked him, wondering what he thought on the subject so she could ignore her own jumbled up feelings.

He turned around to look at her a moment, seeming unsure how to phrase whatever he was thinking before he said, "Yeah. That and that you're only finding out now. It's a small town."

Elena nodded. How had her parents managed to keep it such a secret? Hadn't the town been suspicious when her mother had just shown up with a baby after not showing pregnancy signs? Hadn't some of the parents like Grams or Mr. Salvatore ever thought about telling her? How had Jenna, the one preson she had always trusted one hundred percent, not told her?

Today was supposed to be about letting her parents go and now all she could think about was how she didn't even have a right to claim them. They were just her aunt and uncle… the thought made her sick to her stomach and for a moment she genuinely thought she was going to puke here in the woods. While her gag reflex had definitely been triggered, her empty stomach was unable to release anything. That was until she thought about Uncle John being her father. Her punch escaped her.

"Last time I'm letting you have whiskey," Damon commented dryly, moving over to her with a grimace and holding her ponytail back.

When she was finally done retching, embarrassment flowing through her like her own blood, Damon handed her a handkerchief that appeared to have come with his suit. She was completely grateful not to have to use her hand but at the same time sad to ruin the nice white cloth. "If it was really the whiskey I would agree."

Damon threw the cloth to the ground when she went to give it to him, not looking too bothered at the waste. They continued walking again, her head spinning, and she tried to ground herself enough to calm her thoughts but it did not work. In a circle they ran, the guilt of her parent's death, the idea of a mother she didn't know, the idea of having to live with John and that Jeremy was her cousin, Jenna's betrayal, the nightmare of watching her parents die- all of it ran on a never ending loop until Damon finally stopped, startling Elena.

She looked up to where he was staring, seeing an abandoned clubhouse through the trees, and Damon began to climb. Elena was more than a little dubious on whether it would hold or not but decided once Damon had made it to the top that she really didn't quite care. Once she had climbed up through the entrance and sat on the wooden floor awkwardly with her dress, she finally asked, "So what is this? Stefan never told me you guys had a clubhouse."

"That's because Stefan doesn't know about it," Damon said in response, sitting on the part that was supported by a strong branch, she noticed. Elena wondered how old it was. "It was built for my father when he was a kid, my mother was the one to show it to me."

"Oh," she said, surprised that he would share this with her and also touched. "It's nice."

"It's rotting," he argued, though not unkindly as he looked around the small walls and rooms. "But it's a good place to think when no where else will do."

Elena nodded, wondering how often Damon had come here throughout the years. It was a rather remote location, a tree surrounded by at least a hundred others in each direction, and Elena loved being able to listen to the birds and things with car noises and such being a faint background noise.

"You can cry at any time, just so you know," Damon told her, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

She shook her head. "I can't. I just feel so… empty. My head hurts so bad and I want to cry but… nothing. I feel nothing."

"You will eventually," Damon said, squeezing her hand as he sat down beside her, the ony support she had allowed to be near her.

Why was that? Because she liked him so much? Because he was the only one that knew how hard being a survivor was and how much pain hurt? It didn't really make sense, the pain they had been through in life was different. He had only lost a friend in his car crash, she had lost her parents. His mother had died when he was young, hers when she had spent her whole life getting to know them. His father had abused him, her parents had lied to her. None of it was the same. And yet… "I don't really want to."

"I know," he said seriously, and she looked up to see his eyes so full of concern for her that she shrunk back a little. "But promise me you won't do what I did, Elena. Please. Promise me."

"I promise," she said, not sure if she knew entirely what she was promising him when she saw the desperate look in his eyes. "I'm not the kind of person who gets drunk or high often anyway, Damon-,"

"It's not about that," he interrupted. He was staring away, looking a little pained and as if he was admitting something to her that he didn't necessarily want her to know before he looked back into her eyes with a strong gaze once more, "Just promise me that when you're completely overwhelmed, you'll talk to someone, okay? Not bottle it up for everyone else's sake?"

There was something he wasn't telling her and she knew that, and since it was the one thing she could focus on without thinking of her own problems she pressed the issue. "Damon, what are you talking about?"

He grimaced, giving a sort of huffing sound before finally answering, "I almost killed myself a few months ago. I was being stupid and shutting everyone out and everything was just so overwhelming and- this is just a lot of pressure on you and I don't want to see you get hurt. So promise me."

"What? Damon?" she said, ignoring the last part of what he had said in an attempt to distract her. She had known that things had been bad with him, of course, especially when she and Stefan had staged the intervention, but no one had ever figured out what had finally made him crack. Maybe she shouldn't have been so surprised, but she had always thought- well she had always figured that he was just so bull-headed that he'd drink himself dead but never attempt to take his life outright… "What happened? What did you do?"

"It's not important-,"

"What did you do?"

"Nothing, I was just going to shoot myself okay?" he snapped through gritted teeth, telling her like he was doing so only to get her to shut up, "my dad stopped it, that's not the point. I just want to make sure you're not going to blame yourself and do something stupid. You've got too much ahead of you."

Her hand went to his face, as she whispered his name again, unable to help herself. She tried to tell him all that she felt, tried to transfer all of her worry and concern through touch alone. He gave her a stony look, the same one that he forced on his face any time he was vulnerable with her or anyone else. She knew better then to interrogate him and ask him why he hadn't come to anyone or why he hadn't talked to her- it was in the past and there were things that would take him time to be open about. But the thought that she had really been more close to losing him than she had even thought still frightened her. "I promise."

"Good," he said lightly. "I'd hate for someone to dethrone me as the king of self-sabotage."

That was unlikely to happen anytime soon, she thought, although Jeremy might make a small effort if not watched. No, she would survive this. She would make it through even though it was painful and terrible and she really would just rather go back to the bridge and drown in what was supposed to be her grave, because God only knew what her parents would say if she left Jeremy alone after being forced to be among the living. Cousin slash brother or not. She had the burden of taking care of Jeremy and making sure that Jenna didn't fall apart taking care of them both. It was just how things were now, whether she liked it or not. So she smiled thinly at Damon and smarted back, "You've already come to far to still be king of that, you know."

"Whatever will I do," he said playfully back. He looked as though he wanted to kiss her, but he didn't. She was grateful. There were far too many feelings she was trying to process at the moment without adding the ones for him in the mix. Still, it meant more than she could say that he was such a huge support today.

"Help the worst griever?" she suggested.

He nodded, watching her carefully before taking her pinky finger and holding it. They were sitting across from each other, Damon in a crisscross position and Elena with her legs to the side so her dress didn't ride up too much and it was almost as if they were kids again as they sat making promises in a tree house. "Sounds good to me. We'll be the best pair in Mystic Falls."

Pair. That wasn't exactly couple or boyfriend and girlfriend... the two of them had stayed away from that loaded conversation so far, but Elena had to admit that she liked the idea so far. Being with Damon, possibly ending up and having a future with him- well it made a lot more sense for who she was when she admitted that she had no idea who she was anymore, just how she felt; and what she felt for Damon was more real than anything in her life except for maybe her grief. Somehow, she thought, it just might pull her through.

A/N: Please review! Next (very long) chapter features a summer vacation with friends that is fun and playful and just what everyone needs.